Wars, and Rumors of War
by Col.Foley
Summary: Pretty basic description.  NO SPOILERS.  Unless of course you haven't been following along the ANN stories then their might be minor spoilers for those.  Pretty simple the title really is the description in and of itself.  Happy Mass Effect day.


_Arcturus Station_

Admiral Steven Hackett marched into the combat room of the Systems Alliance de facto 'capitol' on the space station far away from home.

The door whooshed before him and a slight gush of air greeted him as the pressures attempted to equalize.

"Admiral on Deck!" Someone announced by way of formal greeting. Hackett glanced at him and nodded at the saluting soldier.

From here he could organize and get into contact with almost the entire Systems Alliance and many of the human colonies throughout the Galaxy. Except for a few of the ones bordering the Terminus Systems…like Horizon… he could reach almost all of the forces and get status updates. If the stars aligned and space was clear of communications traffic and not taking into account any jamming attempts.

The room was Spartan, but in a cluttered way. A central table dominated it with a rotating circular holo grid with holographic diagnostic consoles around the side, some of them were glowing and others had people manning them checking on their status.

Sprawled out along one other wall was a map of the Galaxy on a digital screen that could be manipulated to show almost any area of it. Right now it showed a wide view of the Galaxy denoting the various positions of the Alliance Fleets and any notable, but detached, flotillas.

Along yet another wall was a systems map that was designed to show specific solar systems and their general status. Right now it showed a map of the system that Archturs station was a part of, its usual status.

Banks of consoles were along the other two walls with people manning them the largest of the group was the master station over by the flight of stairs that could manipulate all the others.

The Lights were once again tinted blue. People were at their consoles attentively attending to their duty with the precision that could only be bred by a crisis.

"Put them on." Hackett graveled knowing his people would understand the order.

The Holo generators kicked in for a second and hummed to life. A signal lone figure appeared in the cameras, at least for the minute, Admiral Price.

"Admiral, what is the situation?" Hackett asked.

"Confused here. They just came through the Relay sir, the Batarians. About an hour or so, forty five minutes, they came out of nowhere. It's been hectic first we thought it was a major attack and then we recognized that the majority of ships that were sent through were civilians and now we are trying to organize and process the data as fast as possible."

"Why weren't we told of this sooner? Why is the first I am hearing about this on ANN?" Hackett shot with the slightest of edges penetrating through his cool demeanor.

"It's a mess here sir." The man said pleadingly.

The screen hummed again and another figure rotated. "Ahern?" Hackett asked.

"Good to see you too." The new figure replied.

"What are you doing there? Where are you?"

Ahern was supposed to be on Pinnacle station and not in the territory he currently was at.

"Attending a wedding. I was just about to head back to Pinnacle when all this broke loose here."

"Understood." Hackett nodded.

"The situation is tense here. The Batarians came out of the relay gang busters and immediately requested assistance. We scrambled the ships and forces that we could think this was a wide scale attack but then they convinced us of their intentions and the large majority of ships weren't armed." Admiral Price reported.

"Yeah," Ahern agreed with a nod, "Conflicting stories and a bunch of panicked civilians and Military personnel coming through the relay. Thank God Admiral Price and the Turians mobilized as fast as they did or we could've easily been over run."

"Admiral." One of the communications specialists cut in, "we are receiving a signal from Admiral Hood bouncing off com relays."

Hackett's eyes narrowed, "Put him on." He ordered.

The final figure revolved on the table pushing the other two smaller and smaller.

"Sorry I'm late we were having trouble aligning our com signals; we seem to be getting interference. Don't know how long I'm going to be able to maintain the connection."

"Then let's keep this brief." Hackett kept all the small talk to the barest of minimum. "Admirals were there any reports of what the Batarians were running from?" 

Price Shrugged.

Ahern smiled ruefully. "What weren't they running from? Turians, Asari, Rachni, even reports about some Geth, one guy even said it was the ghost of Sentry Omega."

Hackett rolled his eyes, "Anything official?"

It was Ahern's turn to shrug, "nothing too official the only officers we have here said it's 'like nothing they ever saw before'. And I have to agree with their assessment. Granted not that we've seen anything concrete but a Batarian Frigate engaged one of the enemies and sent a detailed report off. Problem is it was destroyed instantly and then the relay that they sent the message too was bombed before it could sent it to the Cruiser that finally managed to get through the relay."

Hackett paused for a second chewing on his lip. "How long do we have?"

"Till the forces engaging the Batarians show up?" Ahern shrugged. "The commander of the Cruiser said 'hours' but they are a few relays back still. That and they seem to be engaged in a lot of mopping up operations…we could have hours and we could have days."

Hackett nodded. "Any description about what we are up against?"

Hood frowned in the display.

Price cut in. "As Ahern has mentioned little in the way of official messages and what we have is corrupted. And what we have I can't make any heads or tails of and it's probably a ghost image. The energy signature matched what attacked the Citadel a couple of years back, but as I said, we don't have solid information."

Hackett's eyes narrowed even further. "I think as a precautionary measure we should begin to mobilize the fleets in the event of war."

Price shrugged. "Sure, but that is not really my job since my forces are already there dealing with the crisis."

"I have nowhere to go I'm just commanding Pinnacle station and I'll try and get a message to them and then get a transport home but until then there is little I can do." Ahern supplemented.

"I can be at Earth in four days." Hood suggested.

"No!" Hackett snapped.

Hood scowled.

Hackett cleared his throat. "Whatever is coming you probably can't get here and time and you'll be cut off, it's safer to stay out in the outer colonies in order to protect them in case this does become a Galactic war, and to coordinate with the other races where possible."

"You think it'll be that bad?" Hood asked.

"If it does you'll be out there. Besides we have three fleets already hopefully that'll be enough."

"Yeah it will be, it should. The Batarians aren't anything compared to our forces when push comes to shove. I'll monitor the Relay and try and get information out if anything nasty heads your way. Price out." The man's image disappeared and the other two enlarged to compensate.

"And I'll do what I said I'm going to do, hell maybe I can loan a Kodiak from one of these Dreadnaughts." And without further preamble Ahern also disappeared.

"Good luck Hackett."

"Same to you Hood."

Hood nodded and then he too shut down.

Hackett turned to regard the aid behind him who stiffened to attention.

Hackett sighed knowing what was about to come.

"Your orders sir?" The man asked.

Hackett nodded walking out the door down the long corridor to more private quarters as he spoke to the man who was following him. They were rapidly leaving the drab, gray, cliché 'military country', to go to the purer white of the main station, just to go back to the 'Officer's Country' of his quarters.

"Order a general deployment, all Military forces will mobilize on my command. Code Orange-Alpha-Red."

"Sir…really…you think it's that bad?"

"Yes, get the people ready. General planetary mobilization. Lock down Arcturus while you are at it."

"Sir we just can't do that we need permission from everyone. The Prime Minister, the President…hell Presidents."

"Then get that permission no matter the cost."

"That is going to be nearly impossible sir. Not without a known threat."

"We can worry about that later and we can begin to deploy the forces that we can, keep it quiet last thing we need is a panic before we are ready."

"But…is it that bad? Do you believe it's them?"

Hackett turned and paused, "Of course."

The man stiffened, "There has to be another explanation, they are a myth sir. The Geth, the Batrians…anyone…it's a large Galaxy!"

"It's them." Hackett nodded.

The man looked as if he wanted to continue the argument.

"Admiral, we just lost contact with Admiral Price."

"Get those forces moving," Hackett nodded before stalking off. "And get me Admiral Anderson while you're at it."

Disclaimer: You know how I hate these things but they are rather necessary given that I might get carted off to jail if I don't put them in. So here it is. I own nothing…well minus my own copy of ME…but the IP is not mine. That is Bioware and or EA. Wish I thought of it. Then again if I did think of it I would probably be laughed at.

AC: And I just thought of this idea last night so it might be a bit rough I tried to do the best I could…but happy Mass Effect day.


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